Wesco Not Tesco The First Ever Supermarket On The Uk

A Memory of Quarry Bank.

I have so many wonderful memories of growing up in Quarry Bank - from moving into the brand new 'fashion houses' when I was 3; four of us on a motorbike, with me wedged between mum and dad (Wes Archer) as he negotiated the roads before they were finished (my 7 year old sister, Jenny, on the back!); the proud opening of the shop in Lawnsdown Road - it was actually called W.E.S. & Co and became the social focus of the estate - only recently did we realise that dad was way ahead of his time with the name of the grocery-cum-sweet shop that my mother, Hilda, ran cheerfully for several years. She sold just about everything Dad brought back from an Aladdin's cave beyond Dudley. And every day I was allowed 2 custard tarts and a Mars bar before I did my homework. No wonder I have so many fillings!

In the early days we often played 'armies' in the 'oods behind the houses, made rope swings near the brook, sometimes so near that we fell in! Does anyone remember playing 'knife'? - with or without the swing. One day a big kid from 'the council 'ouses' fell off the rope doing a rounder and landed on his back. He was knocked out on the path below (the 'bonk' down to the river was very steep) and my dad carried him all the way up the bank to the road, then took him to Corbett's 'ospital where he recovered, never to know who it was who saved him. Perhaps he'll read this.

I loved Lye Infants and also the big school - Quarry Bank Primary School (for Boys and Girls then mixed); the one opposite the Liberal Club with that since discarded painting of Gladstone in the 'smoke room' where my dad sometimes talked politics with his friends on Wednesdays after band practice. For 2 years I was my junior school's first team goalie (captain even! in year 4) but in that summer I discovered that I could keep the ball from my mates with my feet for as long as I wanted to, and I never played goalie again! In the 11-plus year of our 1966 World Cup win , the first two of us from Quarry Bank went to Dudley Grammar (rather than to Brierley Hill GS, Stourbridge GS or even Tipton GS). At the DGS football trials for the under 12s, I kept quiet about my goalkeeping history in Quarry Bank and became 'famous for a moment' as a promising centre-half (or rather centre-back then 'sweeper' who could 'read a game'). It is sometimes said that Dudley has produced four centre halves of great repute, including Sammy Allardyce and Kelly Hughes from 'the Wrenna' and Duncan Edwards from the Priory years before. But only one of these 'Dudley centre halves' actually came from Quarry Bank! And only one of them turned down Tommy Docherty's offer to sign for the Villa. Some would say this was a lucky escape!.